How to Enable Slides for Offline Editing

Google announced this week that you can now create, edit, comment, and even present Google slides without an internet connection. This is great news for those of us that are constantly on the go with limited or poor internet connectivity. Being productive while on a flight just got even easier! To enable offline slides, you must use Chrome or a Chrome OS device. Those who are new to using the Chrome browser, be sure to check out our post Google Chrome Tips.  In today’s post, we will cover the quick steps required to enable offline slides. Please note that if you want to enable offline access on more than one computer, for example your laptop and desktop computers, you will need to set up each computer separately.

From your Google Drive, click on ‘More’ in the left side bar.

Next, select ‘Offline Docs’.

You will then be prompted to ‘Enable Offline’ editing.

You may also be prompted to ‘Get the app’ if you haven’t already installed the Drive Chrome web app. This will take you to the Chrome web store where you will click ‘Add to Chrome’ to add the app to your browser. Once installed, click the Google Drive app icon to return to drive.

Once you’ve enabled offline access, you will want to make sure that the documents you want to edit are synced offline. There’s nothing worse than opening your laptop on a flight to edit your presentation only to find the slides didn’t sync. Now what will you do? You didn’t bring a book and there’s a fussy toddler in the seat next to you. To avoid this scenario, verify that the docs you need are included in your ‘Offline Docs’ folder. Click ‘Offline Docs’ located under ‘More’ as you did to setup offline access.

You will see the list of accessible documents in this folder. You will also see the last time your docs sync’d to the offline folder.

Syncing happens automatically when you have an internet connection. If you do not see the docs you need to access offline listed in the ‘Offline Docs’ folder, check your connection. Once your connection is established, click the gear icon in the top right of your screen to view the sync progress.

Once you see your slides listed in the folder, you are ready to edit your presentation offline. Now, when you're finished editing, you can even present your slides without an internet connection!

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